Sausages

I made my first batch of sausages the other day.  Naturally, the first recipe I tried was for South African boerewors.  I used the coarse grinding plate and minced it twice and then stuffed it into collagen casings.  It was such a success that I can't wait to try my hand at some other recipes.  Meat is expensive though, so the experimentation isn't going to be all that frequent.  Still, it was a very satisfying thing to do.

I know exactly what went in to it too - beef, pork, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, vinegar, salt and pepper. The ingredients in commercial sausages are rather suspect - soya, cereal, nitrites and nitrates, minced bone and gristle, organs, bits of eyeball, nose and other dodgy bits of meat plus a host of other binders, fillers, salts and chemicals. The sort of stuff that nobody would really want to eat, let alone feed to a child.

Here, the meat is cut up ready to go in the machine.


And the result


My historically significant First Wors ;-))


It tasted good too!
You always have to be careful when working with proteins.  The countertops and tray were washed with hot soapy water, rinsed, bleached, rinsed again with very hot water and dried with a clean tea towel.  My hair was tied back, I wore a clean apron and washed my hands carefully several times during the procedure.

This was my first attempt and although I was pleased over all, I have not yet quite got the knack of stuffing the meat into the casings.  The picture above shows it too tightly packed, and more in the batch were understuffed and I had to "milk" the meat in the casings to get rid of air bubbles and to get it right.  Overstuffed sausages are prone to bursting and understuffed with air pockets burst too.  I will undoubtedly get better with practice.